Mediterranean Diet Reduces Heart Risks

Finally, a diet plan that actually has lots of food in it. Recently, New England Journal of Medicine released an article stating that Mediterranean diet can help reduce risks of heart ailments by a staggering 30%; the most any heart-related diets can claim.

There isn’t a standard Mediterranean diet menu yet.

What is a Mediterranean diet? Basically, a Mediterranean diet consists of meals rich in fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, proteins considered healthy such as those from chickens and fish, beans and legumes.

According to Dr. Richard Besser, ABC News Chief Health and Medical Editor, it also includes a consumption of about 2 liters of extra virgin oil and lots of nuts. The nuts are termed healthy fats that we can snack on when we get hungry outside meal hours.

The Mediterranean Diet has been around for awhile and it’s pretty much popular among weight watchers; however, the release of the study has shot the diet up to media fame.

On the other hand, there are some who are raising brows and questioning the credibility of this study.

Mediterranean Diet Study Has Insufficient Comparisons

The crap Dr. Boden is referring to is the common low-fat, high-carb foods that common Americans eat daily. One of the three groups that participated in the research was said to have been advised to eat them during the period of the study.

According to a number of critical reviews on the finding, the variety of diets that the Mediterranean diet was compared to was not enough to reach the conclusion that it is, indeed, the healthiest and the best diet ever.

Perhaps, the best way to look at it is by focusing on the health benefits of nuts, olive oil and the other foods recommended for the diet. After all, there is yet to have a standard Mediterranean menu. Until then, any meal that includes fruits, vegetables or any of the foods listed above; sprinkled with lots of olive oil and taken with wine might as well be consideredMediterranean.

There are many good sides to this diet, as stressed by Dr. Janet Brill of DrJanet.com. She attests to its effectiveness in reducing the risks of heart diseases which she even wrote about in her book, Prevent a Second Heart Attack: 8 Foods, 8 Weeks to prevent heart diseases.

Dr. Janet Brill says that the food is delicious and is easy to adapt to as a lifestyle because of the accessibility of the food products. All of them are available in the local markets and supermarkets. She admits, though, that the Mediterranean diet now is far different from the traditional Mediterranean diet which is almost, in her term, “extinct”.

Here’s a video on ABC News about the Mediterranean diet breakthrough:

What should not be missed is that in all articles arguing both sides of the coin, physical activity is consistently attached to the diet. That’s the key to living a healthy lifestyle – a healthy diet and regular exercise.

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Exercises for Functional Movement and its Benefits

The ability to move the body with proper muscle as well as joint function for easy, pain-free movement is called functional movement. Learning ways to be bio-mechanically capable with everything you do, be it for athletics and sports, daily life endeavors, overall fitness, it is crucial for having good health and to avoid injury.

If many of us regularly move our bodies with poor body mechanics or with bad posture, our joints lack enough space necessary for our bones to move freely, along with groups of muscles that needs to be active; our bones can’t fire efficiently, creating restrictions with our flexibility, and instability of muscle which at some point can lead to injury. Although our average functional movement regimens cause injuries, but also the body will take these muscle regimens as the strategy to normally move.

Functional Movement Exercise

It may need an entirely new and enhanced understanding of your current posture and movement habits, better body understanding, along with undertaking the proper exercises to boost new muscle regimen. As time passes, you will be aware of the health improvement benefits of learning how your body moves, and experience moving properly with better functional movement habits for greater overall health and wellness.

So, what does exercise relate to all of this? Functional exercise develops and as well trains the muscles in ways that make day-to-day activities more efficient, simpler, easier, and safer. These work outs improve your ability to function independently and enhance your lifestyle. Some of the advantages of working out in a functional way include significantly improving your endurance, flexibility, muscular strength, and joint health. This can lead to a much more flexible, strong and efficient body with more ability to do lots of activities that are physically demanding, challenging, and strenuous.

Here are some tips about functional movement from Montclair Patch.

Functional Movement Exercises

How to Make the Most of Your Workout With Functional Movements

There is a certain set of rules that should be taken for the safe succession of functional workouts. Safety is vital; ensure to look for professional help before starting a functional training routine.

Exercising after Pregnancy

There are many sacrifices that mothers have to bear just to give birth for a baby. Women usually gains at least 30 pounds of weight while pregnant, but eventually much of this weight will be shed soon after giving birth. However, bear in mind that you will have body changes for sure. If you want your body back before you have your baby, you must consider getting some exercises, but it does not have to grueling.

Exercising after giving birth helps you get your body as fit as before, and at the same time, it helps you feel better about yourself though it could be the last thing you feel like doing. There are many workouts to help you achieve the body you have before you were pregnant. You just have to consistently do them.

Following childbirth, you’ll have to endure several things such as pains. You can’t do intense workouts as it could add to the wounds in your body. You have to begin with simple exercises, which can be done at home. Normally, just two and a half hours of cardio activity each week is the advisable hours to work out for women following childbirth, moderate intensity and if possible spread out during the entire week.

Some Great Simple Ways to Get Fit After PregnancyPhot Credit: http://forum.chatdd.com

Before exercising, you should do some stretching and warm-up, and allow yourself to cool down after. Start slowly and gradually, and build up. Avoid extreme exercise that will cause fatigue, stress and dehydration. You can try out a few simple exercises to help you get going and increase your load progressively. You can do some walking or swim a couple of laps in the pool. You can also head to the gym and ask for the advice of personal trainers who have had some experience dealing with women working out after giving birth to assist you in your workout.

Kegel exercise is among the best workouts you can do. This type of workout involves the muscles in your pelvic area. This helps strengthen your control of your urination, which is a usual problem of women when they give birth. The area that is commonly affected by pregnancy is the tummy or the belly. A lot of women gain fat storage in this area making them look bigger. Remember that there are exercises that you can try to enhance your abs. You can do pelvic tilts. You have to lie supine with legs bent and feet flat on to the floor. Tighten the muscles in your tummy area and tilt your pelvis in your direction. Try also to tighten the pelvic muscles as you slowly move the pelvis to prevent excessive pressure in the area.

Check this article from James Goodlatte of The Epoch Times, which shares some simple exercises that new moms can do to stay fit.

Getting Back Into Shape Following Childbirth

Healing Your Body after Birth

These are only some simple safe ways to get in shape fit after giving birth. Keep in mind that before you begin any exercise routine; always consult your doctor to avoid any problems such as difficulty breathing or internal bleeding.

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Hipsters are great but when you’ve got a muffin top going on around your waistline, the jeans don’t seem so great anymore. They become uncomfortable to wear especially when you’re sitting down. If you want to look fabulous in a pair of jeans, you must seriously consider doing exercise.

Plank exercises are great for the abs and obliques

Muffin top is the term used for a person’s midsection flabs. They are called such because the bulge on your belly leading round to your back flips over the waistline or hipline of your jeans resembling the top part of a muffin.

So, how do we get rid of muffin tops? Crunches are out. Crunch workouts are now considered potentially risky especially when your posture and movement is not accurate. If you’re trying to get rid of the fat in your midsection, planks would be the way to go.

What are planks?

Planks are endurance training workouts. They are good for shaping, firming and toning the abs and the obliques.

To do a basic plank, prop yourself up on floor with your elbows; resting on the toes of your feet, straighten your knees to form a line from your back all the way to your feet.

A side plank is actually a yoga pose. You roll to one side, propping yourself up on one elbow and reaching up with the other arm; straighten your knees to create a line on the side of your body, from your upper body leading to your feet.

You can do the plank exercises from 15 seconds to 2 minutes depending on your fitness capability. This will also develop your core strength as the muscles in the stomach contract while you keep the planks on stationary.

Here’s a video demonstration of the basic plank exercise:

The benefits of plank exercises go more than just shaping your stomach. Plankexercises develop the core muscles which result to burning more calories. They also develop good posture, core stability, flexibility and builds your lower back.

Wanna learn how to do a proper plank and other abdominal exercises that will bring out the curves at the right places? Sign up for our boot camps.

If you are in a perfect world all things would be equal, but as you can see, life is just not like that. As it is a recognized fact that men and women’s bodies are not made in the same way. In an issue concerning weight loss, men do normally lose weight faster than women. This matter must not be ignored each time a couple is going on a fitness drive or a diet together, for the reason that the woman can be a bit discouraged when she does not have the same weight loss level.

Men Lose Weight Faster than Women

The fact is that men typically have certain advantages with regards to weight loss. In spite of how depressing this may appear, the reality is that losing weight cannot be considered an equal opportunity activity because of the truth that age and gender actually play vital roles.

Let’s look at the reasons why men usually lose weight quicker than woman. Watch this video…

Why Losing Weight is So Hard for Women

Although men lose weight quicker than women, the essentials of weight loss stay the same for both genders. A balanced diet coupled with regular exercise and realistic weight loss goals are perfect for anybody that remains disciplined and committed.

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Do you remember the kind of fearlessness you had when you were a kid? Exercise was a huge part of our lives and we didn’t even think about it; we were just having so much fun balancing ourselves on concrete walls, dangling on tree branches with our legs holding us up, darting in and out of holes and chasing some small. furry animal back into his burrow. We were invincible.

When we grow older, we shift our lives to accommodate what we would refer to as grown up priorities. With technology constantly evolving and introducing us to gadgets, exercise had turned to be an appointment at the gym and our physical activities are replaced by androids, internet games and social networking sites.

When we were kids, exercise was a huge part of our lives and we didn’t even think about it

Because of the major downsizing of our physical activities, obesity had crept into our societies and has become one of the biggest health threats in the world.

If you think about it, the situation isn’t all that bad. Because of the health issues that had sprouted in line with obesity, it had re-awakened that desire in us to move and get into some action. As an article in news.com.au states, it’s a primal desire; the primal desire in us that had been brought out by the reintroduction to physical activeness. We’re beginning to comprehend real-time exercise.

Extreme sports had expounded from what we commonly know like surfing, rock climbing and bungee jumping. Extreme obstacle fitness challenges such as the Tough Mudder series and the Spartan race are taking over the fitness arena and according to the same article, it’s because it releases the children in us that we are drawn to the thrill of having to go through the extreme challenges

Exercise Like Kids

We’ve actually come full circle. Boot camps and other outdoor exercises are in; and so are extreme fitness challenges. Gym memberships seem to only have been one long-lived trend meant for people with limitations with the outdoors. The demands of both our corporate and family lives bring us to seek for the highs of our childhood that we can only collect from extreme fitness challenges.

The Role of Hormones in Your Weight Loss Success

Have you been struggling in losing weight? Do you find it difficult to lose those fats regardless of how much exercise and diet?

Getting rid of excess pounds may not often be something that is a breeze to carry out. Even if you might see lots of programs on TV that conveys how very simple it could be with this particular product or that dietary supplement, it is hardly ever how it is charged for being. Moreover, probable problem that exists, you have to recognize how hormones affects weight loss.

You might not know it, but hormones play a vital role in losing weight. The hormones and the glands that are linked to metabolism are directly connected to your attempts to get rid of fat for weight loss. Learning to stimulate these essential fat burning hormones while curbing the fat making hormones is vital to effective weight management.

The only surefire lasting way in losing weight and sustain that loss in the long run is to concentrate on your fitness and strength. A workout program that has at least 60% strength training workout implemented for twelve months or a lot longer will significantly increase chances of maintaining permanent weight loss.

Make Use of Your Body’s Hormones for Permanent Weight Loss

Proper nutrition combined with cardiovascular interval training and strength training can further affect your body’s hormones in promoting weight loss. An uncontrolled craving stems from high insulin level- due to eating too much processed foods, carbohydrates and refined sugars. When you do proper workout at the right intensity level, you decrease your levels of insulin, you then become more insulin sensitive, and the appetite go away.

Those who increase their fitness and strength in the proper way are more prone to being more energetic and have a tendency to push themselves at higher levels. This is because physical exercise and activities of all types get easier and thus a lot more enjoyable.

Here’s an account from Shelly Greenfield of PostBulletin.com, on how hormones play a significant role in your weight loss goals.

Losing Those Few Pounds – How Hormones Affect Weight Loss

Fitness Matters: Hormones play a role in burning fat

So, the next time you are working out, consider the many excellent things that are occurring to your hormones. It may even push you to do more exercise.

Losing weight is usually one of those challenging matters in life to attain. When you’re trying to lose weight and get fit, you will discover a distressing phenomenon that will happen which may start to deter you from continuing your efforts. Those on a diet have come to recognize this as the weight loss plateau. Weeks after shedding lots of pounds and achieving excellent results, you will notice that all of a sudden you aren’t losing any weight at all, despite the fact that you are eating right and working out.

Recovering from the weight loss plateau could be an extremely hard task, if you don’t have the knowledge needed to reach the next stage of your health venture. Rather than letting it discourage you, take it as a chance to double up your determinations and reconnect with your plan to take you through to the finish line. On the other hand, getting over a weight loss plateau is even more challenging.

Weight loss plateau occurs when you keep working on the similar set of workouts and consuming similar kinds of food. If you do this, your body eventually got accustomed to your regular workout and diet, so it regulate itself to burn fats based on the amount of food that you consume and the workout that you did. Because of this, your weight loss routine will be unsuccessful to get a consistent result.

Beating the Dreaded Weight Loss Plateau

Our body is an adaptable organism, and it aims to constantly maintain balance. When you initially begin your diet plan and workout routine, you stunned your body into burning a lot more calories which you were eating, so your body adjusted suitably and achieved its added energy requirements by burning excess weight. For this reason, you lost weight.

However, at your current reduced weight, your body needs fewer calories overall to execute your day-to-day activities. You stop shedding some weight as your body has adjusted to burning about as much as you are consuming. Your body has adjusted and recovered its balance.

Watch this video for tips on how you can beat the dreaded weight loss plateau…

Weight Loss Plateau – Dieter’s Enemy

Weight loss plateau could be easily beat by some changes to your routine. When you apply these changes, your body will identify them, and it will also cause your metabolism to change to a higher gear. Soon enough, you will begin to lose weight again.

In reality, weight loss plateau is certainly not greater than a natural phase of weight lossprocess. It is nothing to worry about as it always happens to a lot of people that’s on a diet and it is not difficult to overcome. For any queries regarding weight loss plateau and to learn more why it happens, check out our website.

Misuse of Fitness Social Network Sites Can Be Risky

More fitness enthusiasts are more than just interested in the workouts that they do and the results of their efforts. Their interests broaden towards wanting to know the latest gadgets and equipment, get the latest updates on the kind of fitness activity that they’re into like marathons, triathlons, runs and cycling events; they want to hear news about fellow fitness buffs and they also want an avenue to talk about their training and achievements.

Lucky for them, fitness apps are not the only thing that has come out on the internet. Social network sites specifically focused on fitness and health have also come out. The good part is that many of them are free.

Fitness Social Network Sites Are Great If The Person Uses The Tool Properly

Here are 3 of the Top Free Fitness Social Network Sites:

1. Myfitnesspal

Myfitness pal is primarily a calorie counter site. It helps you keep a diary of the foods you eat everyday and tracks the calorie content of your meals. With it, you can easily adjust your diet as needed.

Myfitnesspal comes with a members forum wherein members can discuss their concerns, discoveries, achievements, ask questions on weight loss and diet or seek support from fellow fitness buffs.

2. Bodyspace

Bodyspace has an application program that allows you to input some details such as your fitness goal, the number of days that you want to achieve your fitness goal and your fitness level then provides suggestions of workout sets that you can do to achieve your fitness goal. Bodyspace is affiliated to bodybuilding.com.

Bodyspace has a forums page where members can talk topics that vary from nutrition to weight loss; from personal trainers to personal training. You can even post your own fitness articles. There’s always something to encourage, motivate and educate anybody who wants to get into the fitness wagon.

3. Dailymile

Dailymile is an online support for runners, cyclists and swimmers and anyone who’s into weight watching. It’s like the facebook for weight watchers and fitness enthusiasts where members can post their miles or workouts for the day and receive comments and encouragement from fellow fitness buffs.

As it is with any online application programs, fitness social network sites have their downside. First of the list is that the numbers are not perfectly accurate.

With myfitnesspal, you’ll have to know the nutritional content of your food as there are too many suggested calorie content that will appear, you may get misled and have a mis-estimation of your count.

As far as bodyspace is concerned, going about workouts, especially weight lifting, is not safe without a live personal trainer. Even though an online personal trainer has its benefits, it does not outweigh having someone who’s really in-tune to your fitness progress to supervise your workouts.

One of the negative things said of fitness social network sites is that it encourages unhealthy competition among members of these social sites wherein they try to outdo each other’s achievements. While this may seem harmless, it may push others into putting themselves at risk.